The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread

CuckFumbustion

Lo and Behold! The transformative power of Vapor.
Taxes? How about getting the size of government down to reasonable levels of cost to function efficiently and equitably, and then evaluate what our taxes (bracketed or flat) should be to support it, and on an ongoing basis adjust... with a nationalized consensus of citizen-run local government oversight?
I think we should start with Auditing the Fed and shed some transparency on spending. This will effect how future laws will be written on a few levels. Less back deal horse trading. Some Full-time horse traders will have to be un-elected because they simply will have less clout.

Then find what programs actually deliver what they promise on. Remove redundancy and some overlap. But not spend more money shooting knats with an elephant gun. Our gov has done this dance before. Spend money in the guise of saving money. :mental:

Once there is some sort of baseline, then the corrections and the sausage making. :2c: Then making taxes seem fair.
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
:haw: Not sure what the percentage of tax rate is for european countries as a barometer I used to refer to.
Here is one you can use as an example...
The Personal Income Tax Rate in Sweden stands at 57 percent. Personal Income Tax Rate in Sweden averaged 56.28 percent from 1995 until 2015, reaching an all time high of 61.40 percent in 1996 and a record low of 51.50 percent in 2000. Personal Income Tax Rate in Sweden is reported by the Skatteverket.

France is about 75% these days...
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
The socialism Bernie envisions involves taxation similar to northern Europe, perhaps triple or quadruple what our middle class now pays.
 
Gunky,

Gunky

Well-Known Member
No. He does not and never has supported what you implied.
Well, even the official Berni-nomics says your paycheck will go down by 8%. For somebody making 38K a year I estimate that to be at least a 50% increase in their tax rates. However, I have my doubts. Either the Europeans are remarkably inefficient in their socialism or Bernie is giving us over-optimistic, low-ball figures.
 
Gunky,

Silat

When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
Well, even the official Berni-nomics says your paycheck will go down by 8%. For somebody making 38K a year I estimate that to be at least a 50% increase in their tax rates. However, I have my doubts. Either the Europeans are remarkably inefficient in their socialism or Bernie is giving us over-optimistic, low-ball figures.

Show me the money:) Show me where Bernies policies will lower your paycheck 8%.
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
Show me the money:) Show me where Bernies policies will lower your paycheck 8%.
http://dailycaller.com/2016/04/17/t...will-look-like-under-bernie-sanders-tax-plan/

The numbers in the above link are not controversial.

Take those numbers with a vast pile of salt. The Euro socialism which Bernie explicitly admires (and said in one debate he wants us to emulate) costs a great deal more than Bernie's plan, as in 50-60% tax rates compared to our current 15%.

By the way don't stay up nights worrying about Bernie's tax increase. He won't get the nomination. Even if he got the nomination and was elected president, these policies are dead on arrival in Congress. Lone wolves by definition don't have a lot of followers.
 
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Adobewan

Well-Known Member
Not sure how the Hillary camp/DNC's present day tactics are acceptable. I bet our Hillary supporters were the loudest protestors when the FLA SC gave Bush the election.
I imagine there wasn't quite the smugness amongst those supporters as there is present in this thread at times.

If Trump wins by similar unfair means, we'll have to swallow that because that's how this corrupt game is played.

Yay establishment!
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
Paul Krugman
The Truth About the Sanders Movement
May 23, 2016 6:17 pm May 23, 2016 6:17 pm


In short, it’s complicated – not all bad, by any means, but not the pure uprising of idealists the more enthusiastic supporters imagine.

The political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels have an illuminating discussion of Sanders support. The key graf that will probably have Berniebros boiling is this:

"Yet commentators who have been ready and willing to attribute Donald Trump’s success to anger, authoritarianism, or racism rather than policy issues have taken little note of the extent to which Mr. Sanders’s support is concentrated not among liberal ideologues but among disaffected white men."

The point is not to demonize, but, if you like, to de-angelize. Like any political movement (including the Democratic Party, which is, yes, a coalition of interest groups) Sandersism has been an assemblage of people with a variety of motives, not all of them pretty. Here’s a short list based on my own encounters:

1.Genuine idealists: For sure, quite a few Sanders supporters dream of a better society, and for whatever reason – maybe just because they’re very young – are ready to dismiss practical arguments about why all their dreams can’t be accomplished in a day.

2.Romantics: This kind of idealism shades over into something that’s less about changing society than about the fun and ego gratification of being part of The Movement. (Those of us who were students in the 60s and early 70s very much recognize the type.) For a while there – especially for those who didn’t understand delegate math – it felt like a wonderful joy ride, the scrappy young on the march about to overthrow the villainous old. But there’s a thin line between love and hate: when reality began to set in, all too many romantics reacted by descending into bitterness, with angry claims that they were being cheated.

3.Purists: A somewhat different strand in the movement, also familiar to those of us of a certain age, consists of those for whom political activism is less about achieving things and more about striking a personal pose. They are the pure, the unsullied, who reject the corruptions of this world and all those even slightly tainted – which means anyone who actually has gotten anything done. Quite a few Sanders surrogates were Naderites in 2000; the results of that venture don’t bother them, because it was never really about results, only about affirming personal identity.

4.CDS victims: Quite a few Sanders supporters are mainly Clinton-haters, deep in the grip of Clinton Derangement Syndrome; they know that Hillary is corrupt and evil, because that’s what they hear all the time; they don’t realize that the reason it’s what they hear all the time is that right-wing billionaires have spent more than two decades promoting that message. Sanders has gotten a number of votes from conservative Democrats who are voting against her, not for him, and for sure there are liberal supporters who have absorbed the same message, even if they don’t watch Fox News.

5.Salon des Refuses: This is a small group in number, but accounts for a lot of the pro-Sanders commentary, and is of course something I see a lot. What I’m talking about here are policy intellectuals who have for whatever reason been excluded from the inner circles of the Democratic establishment, and saw Sanders as their ticket to the big time. They typically hold heterodox views, but those views don’t have much to do with the campaign – sorry, capital theory disputes from half a century ago aren’t relevant to the debate over health reform. What matters is their outsider status, which gives them an interest in backing an outsider candidate – and makes them reluctant to accept it when that candidate is no longer helping the progressive cause.

So how will this coalition of the not-always disinterested break once it’s over? The genuine idealists will probably realize that whatever their dreams, Trump would be a nightmare. Purists and CDSers won’t back Clinton, but they were never going to anyway. My guess is that disgruntled policy intellectuals will, in the end, generally back Clinton.

The question, as I see it, involves the romantics. How many will give in to their bitterness? A lot may depend on Sanders – and whether he himself is one of those embittered romantics, unable to move on.
 

Msek

Well-Known Member
Live stream for the next couple of days showcasing civic groups making a difference.
Day1
https://www.breakingthroughpower.org/

Change the conversation
On May 24, Breaking through Power – The Media, We will discuss forming a new advocacy group “Voices” that will work to open up the commercial media, that use the public airwaves free of charge, to much more serious content.
------
Day2


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April news release
Breaking Through Power: A Historic Civic Mobilization
https://www.breakingthroughpower.org/a-pioneering-civic-marathon/
 
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Gunky

Well-Known Member
Always interested in what the clearly unbiased Paul Krugman has to say about Hillary V Bernie.

Krugman Over the Edge: He Should Apologize for Smearing Bernie Sanders With False Charges
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny...e-edge-smearing-bernie-sanders_b_9721316.html

Actually Krugman was pretty much correct about Bernie's statements about Clinton's southern state wins. This is from the original article which Glover's impassioned demand for an apology was pointed at:
Over the past week, Mr. Sanders has declared that Mrs. Clinton leads only because she has won in the “Deep South,” which is a “pretty conservative part of the country.” The tally so far, he says, “distorts reality” because it contains so many Southern states.

There is simply no way to logically explain what Sanders meant without minimizing voters in some areas of the country. You try to explain it. Possibly Sanders had not thought through the implications of his statement but there is no way to translate that into something that doesn't patronize somebody. Sanders lost the popular vote in those states! All his fiddling excuses and explanations mean little and only diminish him. The caucuses he himself won were an order of magnitude less representative of the country as a whole than any of those southern states. Ergo he only cares about votes being representative or 'distorting reality' when they happen to go against him.

And by the way Sanders was quite wrong about those states 'distorting reality'. We are nearing the end of the primaries and Clinton still leads by millions of votes.
 
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thisperson

Ruler of all things person
All I get from that last quote is that the race was south loaded at the time *meaning they went before other possibly more progressive states and therefore the pool of those who voted was South heavy* and wasn't an accurate all encompassing reflection of America. As will be the case after the last state has voted.
 

grokit

well-worn member
The Case for Superdelegates Selecting Sanders



It’s time to bring the newly energized electorate to the polls and to see the powerful vision of superdelegates come to fruition.

Just like in 2008, it’s coming down to the superdelegates. Barack Obama’s win was secured when two-thirds of the superdelegates decided that he would be the better Democratic candidate for president. In order to serve in their envisioned role as an electoral corrective, the superdelegates should give Bernie Sanders the Democratic nomination.

Obama represented “hope and change” on immigration, climate change and health care. Sanders represents the future of the party through bold foreign and domestic policy positions that have brought him ahead or close in national polls. His hark back to FDR-style politics—including investment in infrastructure and people—and his flat rejection of the neoliberal and neocon politics practiced by Hillary Clinton have galvanized the electorate. The Vermont senator polls far ahead of the former secretary of state against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump. His candidacy must represent our future.

So say Democrats, including a band of fierce loyalists who have fueled his unbelievable rise—yet with the political, media and corporate establishment support of Clinton, the pledged delegate split is 46% to 54%. So say the young generation who overwhelming support Bernie. So say independents comprising more citizens than either political party, who oppose rampant militarism and unfair trade.

MUCH more...
http://www.nationofchange.org/news/2016/05/22/case-superdelegates-selecting-sanders/
 

His_Highness

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
For every Hillary supporting article, video, speech or message tied to a carrier pigeon there is a contradictory Bernie supporting article, video, speech or carrier pigeon that intelligently rebuts Hillary's. This works both ways......Funny thing is how often these opposing view points will use the same factoids or events to make their counterpoint.

I make no apologies for feeling the Bern and I will make no apologies if I have to vote for Hillary if she wins the primary and Bernie bows out.

I am torn about the possibility that Bernie may decide to run in the general even if Hillary wins the primary.

The feeling among many is that we need a political redo and not just on the republican side. Being sick and tired off the 'same ol, same ol' do nothing folks we've elected over the years is the undeniable undercurrent. Obama was a breath of fresh air and we need more like him and Hillary for all her attempts at trying to line up with Obama is not even close even if she is trying to latch on to his accomplishments. The election advantage goes to the perceived political outsiders in a big way again and there is no doubt in my mind that Bernie and Trump are the perceived outsiders. I also am firm in my belief that Bernie would beat Trump much more handily than Hillary. I felt this way long before the polls came out to support the premise. Hillary is a political insider and that's not in vogue plus she isn't the most well liked of candidates.

I can almost hear the Hillary supporters saying I've drank the kool-aid. And to that I say...."Doesn't matter if I drank it or even who served it up. What matters is the fact that so many have drank it and the taste agreed with them."

I don't know whether to hope Bernie runs no matter what happens in the primary or not. My only worry is he could dilute the democratic and independent voting numbers and allow Trump an advantage. Bernie's diatribe regarding the political advantage given to Hillary is starting to sound like preparation for an excuse to run in the general .... no matter what.
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
So again i don't follow all that closely so how is my guy Bernie doing? A decent chance? Seems like Trump and Hillary lost some steam, hoping that means it is Bernies Sanders's chance to shine.
He no longer has any chance but keeps telling his followers he has a chance because otherwise his campaign contributions would fall off to nothing. He lost the popular vote by a large margin, so all he can do is suggest the process is rigged, though it only appears rigged if you drink the Kool-aid and resolutely ignore the vote counts.
 

grokit

well-worn member
Is Hillary Clinton The Last Democratic Presidential Candidate To Support The Death Penalty?



Since launching her campaign for the White House last year, Hillary Clinton has become a vocal supporter of comprehensive criminal justice reform. She has had to apologize for aspects of her husband’s ‘three strikes’ crime bill and has backtracked on some of the ‘tough-on-crime’ language she used during the 1990s.

But there remains one area in which she is reluctant to embrace progressive reform.

On multiple occasions this year, Clinton has expressed her support for the death penalty. She usually qualifies her support, saying she believes capital punishment should be used for certain federal crimes, like terrorist attacks and mass shootings. And she says she doesn’t think states should be able to carry out capital punishment because of the arbitrary nature in which it’s applied and the possibility for human error. Nonetheless, she still believes that the federal government should maintain a “very limited” use of capital punishment.

“Maybe it’s a distinction that is hard to support, but at this point, given the challenges we face from terrorist activities in this country that end up under federal jurisdiction for very limited purposes, I think it can still be held in reserve for those,” Clinton said of the death penalty during a March town hall event.

Her support for the practice distinguishes her from the Democratic challengers she’s faced throughout the race. It also distinguishes her from the Democratic electorate.

Just 56 percent of Americans say they support capital punishment — a 40-year low, down from 78 percent just two decades ago. And just 40 percent of Democrats favor the death penalty, while 56 percent are opposed. Being opposed to capital punishment is no longer a handicap for Democratic presidential candidates; in fact, taking a strong stance against the death penalty may even be beneficial in both a primary and general election. And experts say we can expect to see a time in the near future when support for the practice could actually be a liability.

But Clinton has not always supported allowing the government to end lives. In fact, she launched her legal career by representing a death row inmate and arguing the very opposite...

MUCH more...
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2016/05/24/3780745/clinton-death-penalty/
:disgust:
 

Gunky

Well-Known Member
Let me get this straight.

First the bernie-ites were against super-delegates. They supported Hillary! That rigs the system! Those super-delegates might deliver the nomination to Hillary even if she lost the popular vote in the primaries!

Now, as it turns out, Hillary has a pretty sizable majority of the votes and there is every reason to believe she will continue to hold a majority when all the primaries are done. So now the bernie-ites are in favor of super-delegates grabbing the nomination away from the candidate with the majority of primary votes and delivering it to Bernie? [snicker]
 

cybrguy

Putin is a War Criminal
Well, we knew THIS was coming...
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As Trump talks up Vince Foster, That ’90s Show returns

05/24/16 08:00 AM

By some measures, current events of late have offered developments unlike anything Americans have ever seen. A major political party, for example, will nominate a nativist reality-show personality as its presidential candidate, while its rival nominates the first woman to ever lead a major-party ticket. In the not-too-distant past, stories like these would have been difficult to predict.

And yet, there’s also something familiar about much of what we’re seeing.
Ken Starr is making headlines. Newt Gingrich won’t go away. The economy is improving, and the deficit is shrinking, following a Bush-era recession. Democrats are debating the merits of a controversial crime bill and welfare reform. Republicans like to talk up term limits and a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution.

And in case the parallels to the 1990s weren’t quite obvious enough, some unhinged conspiracy theorists on the right are still thinking about Vince Foster’s suicide. The Washington Post reported overnight:

When asked in an interview last week about the Foster case, [Donald Trump] dealt with it as he has with many edgy topics – raising doubts about the official version of events even as he says he does not plan to talk about it on the campaign trail.

He called theories of possible foul play “very serious” and the circumstances of Foster’s death “very fishy.”

“He had intimate knowledge of what was going on,” Trump said, speaking of Foster’s relationship with the Clintons at the time. “He knew everything that was going on, and then all of a sudden he committed suicide.”

The presumptive Republican nominee, true to form, went on to tell the Post, “I don’t bring [Foster’s death] up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don’t do that because I don’t think it’s fair.”

This is, of course, classic Trump. He concedes he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he’s nevertheless comfortable speculating about nonsense he doesn’t fully understand.

There’s no point in rehashing old, ridiculous claims; Foster’s death was carefully investigated at the time and the right-wing conspiracy theories were thoroughly discredited. Instead, what matters now is understanding how the presumptive GOP nominee thinks – and as his Foster comments show, the would-be Republican president just can’t get enough of conspiracy theories, no matter how silly.

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson’s latest column notes Trump’s unnerving habit of believing conspiracy theories, without any real regard for evidence or reason, on a wide variety of topics: Ebola, Antonin Scalia’s death, vaccinations, 9/11, Mexico, crime statistics, and of course, President Obama’s birthplace.

Similarly, MSNBC’s Benjy Sarlin did a nice job earlier this month cataloging Trump’s “obsession with race-baiting conspiracy theories” – it’s not a short list – though Sarlin raised a related point that stood out for me: “Even by normal political standards, Trump’s relationship with the truth is abusive…. The GOP presidential front-runner, whether by choice or by nature, appears fundamentally unable to distinguish between credible sources and chain e-mails.”

And that’s the sort of detail that Americans should take very seriously. As Vox’s Ezra Klein recently explained, “Among the most important tasks the president has is knowing what to believe, whom to listen to, which facts to trust, and which theories to explore. Trump’s terrible judgment in this regard is one of the many reasons he’s not qualified for the office.”

Trump’s affinity for absurd conspiracies isn’t some odd quirk to his personality. It’s the filter through which he sees the world – and it’s a quality that could be quite dangerous in the Oval Office where sound judgment and critical thinking skills are an absolute necessity.

Arguing that Vince Foster’s death was “very fishy,” and conspiracy theories deserved to be taken “seriously” was ridiculous in the 1990s. This nonsense hasn’t improved with age.
 
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